


Transparent

by sequence_fairy



Series: Truth To Hide [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Canon Compliant, F/M, post-686
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8561740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: There was a time, but that time is not now, and will not ever be again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to [Unsubstantial](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7885462). We're in Ishida's head now.

He is a fool.

He knows (he’s always known) but now it is painfully, wretchedly clear.

He’d thought, after they’d all made it through the hell that was the Quincy war, that things would just sort of fall together in the way they’d been heading - the six of them against the world and the quiet, buzzing warmth of the way she’d always looked at him, and he’d thought (stupidly - how could he have been so _stupid_?) that the way she’d looked at him was the same way he’d been looking at her.

And now, Inoue is weeping in his kitchen, and he is at a loss.

She’d garbled an explanation at him before dissolving into tears in his foyer, and Ishida had stood by dumbly while she covered her face with her hands and whispered over and over that she was sorry, that this was not what she had planned and then, she’d looked up at him with eyes dark like brandy and bruised from crying, and she’d said two words that had made a cold stone drop into his stomach, and his blood turn to sludge in his veins.

 _I’m pregnant_.

And then, three more:

_Kurosaki-kun and I…_

Ishida had felt the moment of lost hope as keenly as a blade through his skin.

She eventually stops crying, and reaches for him across the table, but Ishida deliberately evades her touch.

“I think,” he says, and clears his throat to hide the way his voice is choked. “You should tell Kurosaki.”

Inoue’s eyes widen and Ishida watches the lance of hurt go through them before she shutters it behind a layer of false cheer.

“Thank you Ishida-kun,” she says, and stands. He can almost see the steel she layers her spine with, the way she straightens deliberately, chin held high and jaw tight. He can barely look at her. 

She leaves him then, sitting at his table, and Ishida buries his head in his hands and wishes that he smoked, just so he’d have an excuse for the way his eyes are watering and his breath is ragged in his lungs.

He doesn’t go to the wedding - it’s a hurried and hush-hush affair anyway, and he decides, standing on the roof of the hospital, smoking cigarette after cigarette, that she wouldn’t have wanted him there anyway. This time, he has the smokes to blame for the way his eyes smart and his throat clogs.

When the child is born, Ishida makes a point of visiting, just once, to see the baby and do the polite thing of bringing a gift and congratulating Kurosaki on the birth of his son. The baby is happy and smiling as Kurosaki-san bounces him on her lap.

“Congratulations Kurosaki-san,” Ishida says, carefully setting the embroidered booties next to her on the couch. She is aglow with new motherhood, and he assumes the flush on her cheeks is due to the pride she feels in having birthed such a good looking child.

“We’ve decided to call him Kazui,” she says, and Ishida nods. The child looks like his father, who has disappeared into the back of the house, and Ishida stands, awkward and still, in front of her.

He leaves without seeing Kurosaki himself, and settles back into his routine.

—

Inoue – _Kurosaki_ -san – keeps inviting him for dinner.

Ishida keeps saying no.

Well, not ‘no’ exactly, more like ‘some other time Kurosaki-san, I have rounds.’ He hopes that eventually, she will stop asking.

She hasn’t, yet.


End file.
